Governance

A. Corporate Governance and Transparency

All decisions are to be made or approved at the

* General Meetings (AGMs/EGMs) or

* MAPS Executive Committee (EXCO)

Article 1

All decisions relating to MAPS should be made and minuted in the EXCO/AGM/EGM meetings. Decision making in MAPS CANNOT be done at an individual’s level unless specifically approved by the President for expediency purposes.

Sub-committees can be formed and organised to handle certain tasks. There should be an appointment by mandate (decree) to an individual person. This appointment to chair the sub-committee should be limited to an EXCO member or a MAPS Professional member only.

Any decisions or suggestions made by this sub-committee should be reported to the EXCO immediately for approval or ratification before its implementation. The approval or rejection will be made by the EXCO and will be minuted. The sub-committee will act as an advisory body to the EXCO and will not have the authority to carry out direct actions unless explicitly authorised in writing directly or through the minutes of the EXCO meeting or by the President for expediency purposes.

The chair appointed to lead the Conference Organising Committee is subjective to the sub-committee mentioned above. All suggested dates, venues, speaker appointments, engagement of agents and payments must be reported and approved at the EXCO meetings. The approval or rejection will be made by the EXCO and will be minuted. The sub-committee will act as an advisory body to the EXCO and will NOT have the authority to carry out direct actions unless explicitly authorised in writing directly or through the minutes of the EXCO meeting or by the President for expediency purposes.

All appointments to represent MAPS in external associations and other bodies must be done through the EXCO. This must be through a mandate (decree) to the individual person and recorded in the EXCO minutes. These representative must report in writing to the EXCO on all matters discussed and obtain the mandate of the EXCO to make decisions. No information learned by the representative can be considered too confidential that it cannot be disclosed to the rest of the MAPS EXCO members. This also applies to the MAPS President when he represents MAPS in the GSF board or elsewhere.

Article 2

SPECIAL TASKS UNDER THE CONTROL OF MAPS SECRETARY AND TREASURER

All correspondence documents from MAPS EXCO, sub-committees and Conference organising committee shall either be issued by MAPS Secretary. In the case when a sub-committee has appointed its own secretary, any MAPS EXCO approved correspondence made by the sub-committee secretary must be lodged as CC to the MAPS Secretary. This includes correspondences with private, public and statutory bodies such as HRDF. The rule is that a sub-committee will act as an advisory body to the EXCO and will not have the authority to carry out direct actions unless explicitly authorised in writing directly or through the minutes of the EXCO meeting still applies here.

All transactions related to finance, both receivables and payables either in cash or in non-cash transactions, including loans, grants and freebies must be done through MAPS Treasurer. The rule that the sub-committee will act as an advisory body to the EXCO and will not have the authority to carry out direct actions unless explicitly authorised in writing directly or through the minutes of the EXCO meeting still applies here. All payments for venue, speakers and agents must be approved by the EXCO.

Article 3:

USAGE OF MAPS SOCIAL MEDIA

MAPS currently use social media are such as LinkedIn group, Facebook Page and Groups and WhatsApp applications for the purpose of making announcement and promotions. This is currently our suggested communication media tool and is preferred over Voice calls, SMS and e-mails.

In order to keep our meetings short, the WhatsApp MAPS EXCO group is a place to announce EXCO meetings and to carry out discussions. But it is NOT a media for decision making for the EXCO. The VP of membership can use the WhatsApp media to announce new member applications, giving 1 week for any objections to be recorded, otherwise the VP will consider that the new applicant can be admitted without any objections.

B. MAPS CODE OF ETHICS

PERSONAL CONDUCT OF MAPS MEMBERS

1.1 The MAPS member shall at all times speak on a high professional level.

1.2 The MAPS member shall never bring discredit to the speaking profession.

1.3 MAPS members will conduct their personal affairs as good and responsible citizens, especially when indiscreet or antisocial behaviour could reflect badly on the association.

1.4 The MAPS member shall not associate with known persons who commit fraudulent or other criminal activities.

MAPS MEMBERS IN RELATION TO MAPS AND FELLOW SPEAKERS

2.1 The MAPS member shall treat all fellow speakers including non-MAPS members with professional courtesy, dignity and respect.

2.2 The MAPS member shall never offend another fellow member or any speaking professional or any professional speaking body.

2.3 The MAPS member shall avoid using materials, titles and thematic creations originated by others, either orally or in writing, unless approved by the originator.

2.4 In the event of a conflict of interest between a member and the association, the individual concerned shall announce this to the Executive Committee for a proclamation.

2.5 MAPS’ has invaluable resources and confidential information such as a membership and customer database, among others. Access to all such information is made available in trust to members so that they may use them within the limits of their authority for no purpose other than for the advancement of MAPS.

2.6 No MAPS Office bears or any other members officially acting on behalf of MAPS shall accept any forms of Gifts during the course of their duty unless approved by the Executive Committee.

MAPS MEMBERS IN RELATION TO THE COMMUNITY

The MAPS member shall accurately represent qualifications and experience in both oral and written communications.

3.2 The MAPS member shall exert diligence to understand the client's organization, approaches and goals in advance of the presentation.

3.3 The MAPS member shall maintain and respect the confidentiality of business or personal affairs of clients, agents and other speakers.

3.4 MAPS members will subscribe to a policy of equal opportunity; i.e. not restrict access to the marketplace by race, creed, color, gender, age, disability or country of national origin of another speaker.

3.5 The MAPS member shall not misuse his credentials or mislead any persons into believing and supporting his cause for any gain whatsoever, financial or non-financial.

ENFORCEMENT

The objective of introducing the MAPS Code of Ethics is to demonstrate MAPS’ commitment to ethical behaviour as a fundamental prerequisite of good practice by speakers. This code of ethics will be updated from time to time by the MAPS Executive Committee (EXCO) to keep pace with changes in the law and expectations of society generally.

The EXCO will be responsible for any breach of the code of ethics by its members. All complaints and grievances will be heard by the EXCO.

The EXCO will be responsible for:

Instituting appropriate preventative measures

Initiating investigations of any incidents which come to light

Dealing with offenders by disciplinary action

About MAPS

MAPS is a professional association for speakers who are committed to building a better future for the professional speaking business in Malaysia and even globally.Read More..